One Day
by Korrin Belle-Deamon
Summary: Rin and Ryuuji have officially become a couple, but with Rin's looming execution, neither of them knows how much time they really have to spend together, so Rin has convinced Ryuuji to skip school so they can have one solid day alone together to have fun. This is that One Day.


This is a sequel to Living Without Regret (which is a sequel to Drunk and Content) which is hosted on my AO3 account due to having a MA rating for sexual content. This can be read as a one-shot without too much confusion.

I'm writing this series as a chance to do all the obligatory fluff stories, and this one is the homework/study session cliche. The next chapter contains MA sexual content so will be hosted on AO3 when it's written, and skipped here, continuing with chapter 3 when I actually get around to writing it.

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**One Day: Homework?!**

When Rin had first declared that he had a "list of demands", Ryuuji wasn't sure whether to be excited or nervous. He had no idea what to expect. The first item on the list, "skip school and spend the day with me" had been easy enough to agree to since they were already skipping anyway and had just officially, but secretly, become a couple, but Rin had been adamant about not revealing the individual demands until he was ready to ask for them.

The second item on the list? Help Rin With His Homework.

"Are you... Are you serious?" Ryuuji asked incredulously, "_You_ of all people? Want to do homework?"

"Shut up already, I get it," Rin huffed, "I just thought it would help get Yukio off my back when he catches wind that I didn't go to school. Besides, having a genius for a boyfriend should have its perks," he said with a grin.

"I'm hardly a genius," Ryuuji said, blushing and cowing his head at the compliment, "Wouldn't you want to shower first?" he asked as he reached over and ran his finger down the side of Rin's cheek, scratching off some of the dried blood.

"Work first, then the rest of the day can be fun!" he said, grinning at Ryuuji with a predatory smile as he flopped down in to his desk chair and started pulling out his text books.

Ryuuji blushed as he tried to ignore the fact that Rin had subtly lumped a shower in to the fun category and pulled Yukio's chair over to Rin's desk so they could sit together. "Alright. What do you got?"

"Algebra, English and that paper on religious cultural sensitivity," Rin said as he started organizing his textbooks.

"Alright, what have you got done for the paper so far?"

"Uh..." Rin hesitated, a slow sheepish grin spreading out across his face as he shrugged, "Nothing?"

"Seriously? Wasn't that assigned a week ago?"

"Yeeeeah..." Rin sighed with a bored expression as he leaned back in his chair, "I don't even get the point. I'm already bad at doing anything that doesn't involving hacking up a demon right in front of me. This isn't even relevant to demon hunting at all, not like your Aria stuff, boring as it is."

"It's relevant to working in a worldwide religious organization made up of many different people," Ryuuji countered without missing a beat, trying to fight back his annoyance over Rin's jab against his Meister.

"I guess..." Rin grumbled, stretching out over the top of his desk and chewing on his pen absentmindedly.

"I'd think you'd have an easy time of it. You could just write about your experience within the order."

"You mean my experience of constantly being persecuted by the organization I work for?" Rin said sarcastically.

Ryuji snorted. As if he wasn't the one constantly reminding Rin to take his situation more seriously.

"I was thinking more along the lines of your experience being raised in a Christian monastery in Japan, and working as a team with Buddhist monks and Shinto priestesses," he said flatly, "Beyond that suggestion, I can't help you with it anyways, since you haven't written anything yet. Algebra or English?"

"Doesn't matter. They're both equally gibberish to me."

Ryuuji just sighed, pulling the math textbook forward. "Get started and let me know if you want any help. Otherwise I'll just point out any mistakes I spot."

Rin sighed, opening up the textbook and trying to start on the assigned work. Ryuuji sat leaning with his head in his hand, tapping his finger impatiently against the side of his own skull as he watched Rin begin copying the equations from the text book. He vaguely wished that he had some of his own work to do to keep himself occupied, but even if he'd had the foresight to plan for this, he didn't have any unfinished homework to work on anyway, though he'd be playing catch up after skipping today. Well, if he could get away today to speak to his teachers, it probably wouldn't take him more than one afternoon, but he had a feeling Rin wasn't going to let him go so easily.

He watched as Rin sat scribbling, tongue poking out between his teeth as he contemplated the equations, before finally stopping and simply staring at the paper. Ryuji leaned over to inspect his work and saw nothing wrong with it so far, so he sat back to let Rin continue to work, and then grew more and more impatient as Rin simply stared at the problem. Rin's tail began to thump irritably against the floor as his expression grew sour, before he turned to Ryuji with a self depreciating smile.

"Um... I think I screwed it up," he said with an embarrassed laugh as he rubbed the back of his head.

"No..." Ryuuji paused as he looked it over again to make sure he hadn't missed something. "It's fine. Keep going."

"Uh..." Rin looked down at the work again, "Can I have a hint?"

Ryuuji sighed. "Let's see your notes," he said, taking the notebook from Rin and flipping to the most recently used pages. He grimaced at Rin's scrawling, messy print, which appeared to trail off half way through an example. At one point the ink of his pen even bled in to some sort of colorless stain, becoming indecipherable.

"What is this?" Ryuji asked, unimpressed.

"Those are my notes!" Rin huffed.

"Obviously..." Ryuji said with disdain, before sighing and snatching Rin's pen away to fill in the formulas he'd missed out on. "Use this," he said, dropping the notebook back down in front of Rin.

Rin grumbled for a moment before looking over Ryuji's neat handwriting, and then looking back at the equation he'd been working on. Once again, Ryuji found himself growing impatient as Rin sat there glancing back and forth between the example and his own attempt and silently counting on his fingers. Ryuji almost breathed a sigh of relief as Rin finally, hesitantly put pen to paper and slowly worked out the rest of the equation, before nervously sliding his notebook towards Ryuji.

"How's it look?"

"It's correct."

"Really!?" Rin asked gleefully.

"Of course "really". Do you think I'd lie?"

"No, no, just... I thought for sure it was wrong somehow."

"It's a basic formula. Even you shouldn't have difficulty with it," Ryuji sniped.

"Right!" Rin smiled, looking almost excited as he began working on the next equation and for a split second Ryuuji felt guilty for taking a pot shot at Rin's intelligence when he was the one who'd taken the initiative to ask for help, until Rin began silently staring at the question again, as if the answer would make itself known through intimidation tactics.

"What's the problem?" Ryuuji finally asked, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice, but wanting to hurry things along.

"Do I use a different formula for this one?"

"No... It's the same one for the next ten questions, as specified in your textbook."

"Oh..." Rin bit his lip, trying to hide his pout, "But it looks wrong."

Ryuuji tried, and failed, to hide his sigh. "The question isn't in the right form. You have to re-work it until it fits the equation." Rin stared at him blankly, and Ryuuji rolled his eyes. "Look," he said, pointing, "This part shares a common denominator. You pull it out to expand the equation, and then it matches the formula."

"Um... OH!" Rin exclaimed excitedly as Ryuuji's words seemed to take root in his head. More silent finger counting, and this time small notes in the margins of the page as Rin worked out the multiplication before he finally began working his way through the formula proper. When he was satisfied with his work he slid the page over to Ryuuji with a grin on his face, and Ryuuji actually felt a twinge of guilt as he told Rin it was the wrong answer.

"Fuck me!" Rin shouted, looking down at the page in confusion, and Ryuuji snorted at his outburst. "What did I do wrong?"

"If I was marking this as a teacher, I'd give you half marks, 'cuz you used the formula correctly, but you screwed up the multiplication."

Rin groaned loudly and let his head fall forward, banging it against the desk and causing Ryuuji to wince. "Ow..." he said lamely, rubbing his forehead and turning away. "I'm such a screw up."

"Rin... You're not a screw up. It's a simple mistake that everyone makes."

"Uh huh, except you Mr. 100%," he said bitterly.

"No," Ryuuji said, grabbing Rin's head firmly and turning it back towards him, "Even I make those kind of mistakes."

"Really?" Rin asked, raising one eyebrow skeptically.

"Yes, really. I just check my work before handing it in and catch my own mistakes."

"Ugh, but that's so much extra work," Rin whined.

"I don't know what you're bitching about, because right now I'm the one checking your work, so get back to it," he said as he slapped Rin's pen back in to his hand and Rin carried on with only an incomprehensible grumble. Ryuuji watched the silent counting and margin notes again and made a mental note to spend some time with Rin going over the multiplication tables. That would be a chore for both of them, surely, but it would help Rin in the long run. For the moment he ignored the nagging at the back of his head that there might not be a long run. Thinking like that was pointless.

The next time Rin slid the page towards Ryuuji he did so much more hesitantly, eyes nervously downcast as if he was afraid of failing again. Ryuuji eyed him silently until Rin looked up, and only then did he let the smile tug at his lips, before laughing and shaking his head at the erratic nature of Rin's confidence where academics were concerned.

"Oh god, what did I do wrong now?" Rin said, flushing with embarrassment and pulling the notebook back to look over his work.

"No, no, it's fine!" Ryuuji said quickly as he wiped away the tears forming at the corner of his eyes and tried to stifle his laughter. "You're just..." he stopped, unsure of what he wanted to say.

"I'm what?" Rin asked with an angry pout, looking up at Ryuuji from under his bangs.

_There it was._ "Cute," Ryuuji said as the word popped in to his head.

"I am fucking NOT cute!" Rin shouted as he stood up suddenly, his chair screeching across the wooden floorboards. Flushed with indignation, he grit his teeth before pulling himself together. "'Cute' is for animals and babies. If you want to compliment me, you should tell me I'm devilishly handsome," he said as he tried to wiggle his eyebrows. Ryuuji didn't even hesitate and burst out laughing again. Rin blushed hard again as he threw himself back in to his seat with another pout, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. As Ryuuji's laughter finally wound down Rin glared up at him, while his tail whipped from side to side like a pissed off cat. "Are you done?"

"Pfft, what? Are you eager to get back to math?" he asked, mockingly.

"Um, actually..." Rin began as his mood sobered and he ducked his gaze away from Ryuuji's again while tapping his index fingers together, "I was wondering if we could take a break?"

Ryuuji gaped at him as he felt a vein in his forehead tick in annoyance. "Are you fucking kidding me?! You've only done two questions!"

"But we've been at it for like an hour!" he whined.

"It's hasn't even been 30 minutes! Can't you tell time?!" He didn't mention that he could have been half finished in the same time frame, or that he was already learning a level above Rin. If they kept up this rate they'd never finish.

"Of course I can tell time! I'm not that stupid. It's hyper-bowl."

"... ..." Ryuuji was silent, his face contorted in confusion as he tried to make sense of Rin's statement, "...What?"

"Hyper-bowl... You know? Exaggeration. Who's the stupid one now?" Rin said mockingly, incredibly please to have apparently beaten Ryuuji at something intelligence based.

"It's pronounced high-per-boh-lee," Ryuuji deadpanned, and then sighed as Rin's face fell. He took a deep breath as he pinched the bridge of his nose before speaking again. "Just get back to work."

Rin heaved an overdramatic sigh and grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like 'slave driver' as he began copying down the next equation.

"This slave driver will remember your attitude the next time you ask for help."

Rin sighed again, but said nothing, and the process of watching him count on his fingers and work the equations out the long way began again. Ryuuji read ahead in the questions, working out what Rin would have to do in order to solve them and made sure he solved at least 5 of the 10 questions required for each of the different formulas. Rin continued to make a few basic arithmetic errors here and there, but was otherwise able to follow the simple steps of the formulas once he was on the right path. The only other interruption came when Ryuuji was explaining how you could do division of fractions by multiplying by the reciprocal, which resulted in Rin listing all the ways in which Ryuuji was like a wizard, likening his skills as an Aria to using magical spells. They had been at it for almost an hour and a half by the time Ryuuji called it quits.

"Alright, let's stop here -"

"Oh thank God," Rin interrupted, slumping back in his seat and letting out a deep breath "So boring."

"You should be able to finish the rest in section A on your own," he continued, ignoring Rin, "None of the other questions cover anything I haven't already helped you with. Just do them for the practice. If you run in to any problems, you can always text me."

"Thanks!" Rin said throwing him a cheesy grin, but them grimaced, "But what about section B? The word problems."

"Well, at this level you'll always be told what formula to use. It's just a matter of determining what variables to use and where they go in the formula. Don't worry about them right now though, just finish the rest of section A. For most exams the majority of questions won't be word problems, so as long as you can get this stuff down you'll pass."

Rin snorted through his nose and scowled down at the textbook. "You don't think I can do it."

"Do one right now to prove me wrong."

"Wha- That's not fair!" Rin said, hurt passing over his features and Ryuuji instantly felt guilty though he didn't know why.

"You hate this stuff, why do you even care?" he asked defensively

Rin silently pouted as he chewed on the end of his pen so he didn't have to answer. After waiting a moment and deciding that Rin wasn't going to be any more forthcoming, Ryuuji leaned over, putting his hand on Rin's shoulder. "What's the problem?" he asked firmly, but calmly.

Rin heaved a sigh as he dropped the pen haphazardly on to the desk, crossed his arms against the hard surface of the desk and tucked his head in against them, hiding his face. "'_Don't worry about it'_... That's what everyone says when they think it's a waste of time trying to help me."

"Who says that?"

"Pretty much every teacher I've ever had, up until I stopped asking for help. Sometimes Yukio... Now you."

Ryuuji flinched, and he was almost offended that Rin was acting like this, despite the fact that he'd just spent the last hour and a half helping him, but he could see that Rin was seriously bothered by it. He did think it would be a waste to try to teach Rin that sort of thing, but not for the reasons he thought.

"Ok, look. It's shitty that your teachers do that, seeing as it's their job to teach you, I just think you need to focus on strengthening your basic math skills before you move on to something harder - Which, by the way," He paused as he gave Rin's shoulder a squeeze, "I am more than happy to help you with. Anyways you don't even need algebra as an exorcist. Frankly, maybe we should be working on your English instead."

Rin just rolled his eyes, but sat up straight again. "My math isn't that bad," he said haughtily.

"You count on your fingers, for Christ sakes, and you don't know your multiplication tables."

"I do so! I mean... I don't! The finger thing!" Rin said getting flustered as he tried to back track and deny both of Ryuuji's claims at the same time.

"I've just spent god knows how long watching you. You shouldn't still need to count on your fingers, and if you know some of your multiplication tables you certainly don't know all of them, but like I said, I'll fucking help you if you want to get better."

Rin scoffed, clearly deciding against arguing the point further and stood quickly, his chair squealing across the floor loudly. "Nope. I'm officially declaring homework time over. Shower time is now," Rin shouted, once again trying to wiggle his eyebrows.

Ryuuji just rolled his eyes, but quietly felt his heartbeat quicken as Rin grabbed two towels and dragged him out of the room.


End file.
